Windows 7 Starter Edition Only Runs 3 Applications At Once

MS-Windows 7 started edition can only runs 3 apps at a time. This is worse than MS-DOS limitations. Is Microsoft nuts? You can install Ubuntu and run as many apps you want for the Internet and office work.

This edition is intended for poor, developing nations, Asian and African countries. However, according to MS press release:

We know emerging markets have unique needs and we will offer Windows 7 Home Basic, only in emerging markets, for customers looking for an entry-point Windows experience on a full-size value PC.

We’ll also continue to offer Windows Starter edition, which will only be offered pre-installed by an OEM. Windows Starter edition will now be available worldwide. This edition is available only in the OEM channel on new PCs limited to specific types of hardware.

Do yourself a favor - install free, functional operating system like Fedora or Ubuntu. Do not use crippleware.

I don’t like having the limitation, but to call it worse than MS-DOS’ limits is a bit excessive. Not to mention that on the current generation of netbooks running Windows that about 3 apps is all you want to try and run!

This feels like a teaser. After a day or two stacked with three windows, you’ll run to buy a full version like a crazy :-) But really, looking at this from a perspective of a person who has never seen a computer before, but lives from 10 bucks a week, 3 windows limitation can come quiet natural.

It does not make any difference, even with 4GB of RAM does not make Windows run multiple applications as good as Linux regardless the max number of application of 3 or whatsoever. for the sack of human… Microsoft stop selling OS… provides services!

I’m waiting for someone to determine what is meant by “Applications” for this limit. We can all agree that Programs like Word and Excel are applications, but are command prompts? What about Windows Explorer (since that’s built into the UI)? Where do Tray apps fall? Heck, Isn’t IE considered a “component” and not an application (see Netscape lawsuits in late 90s)? I find the term application too vauge to know how restricitive this will really be.

Honestly, how can you expect anyone to take your opinion seriously when there are three grammar mistakes in the first two sentences of this article. I don’t trust anyone who isn’t smart enough to read what he just wrote before posting it online.

Shell terminal and file browser do not count towards the application count. Most people use web based email, so web browser and email are the same. That leaves you witl music player, IM client, web browser.

Basic Windows tools don’t trigger the limit. You can run a Command Prompt window or open Task Manager.

But,

If I tried to use this system as a conventional notebook, running multiple Microsoft Office or OpenOffice aps, playing music in iTunes or Windows Media Player, and using third-party IM programs, I would probably be incredibly frustrated with the limitations of Starter Edition.

Not only will they annoy their customers with this, but the three app limit will drive users more toward web browser-based apps. This will further lessen users dependence on Microsoft. This should be a big boost for things like Google Docs.

Think about it properly for 5 minutes guys. Netbooks (which are essentially Starter’s primary audience) are designed to be small and lightweight both functionally and in form factor. These things AREN’T packed with the kinds of battery you get in a modern laptop computer, and they never should be.

Add onto this the fact that the general public are, by default, absolutely clueless. I mean.. seriously stupid. Your average gran doesn’t realise/care that running 10 applications will annihilate her battery – chances are she just forgot to close 9 of them in any case.

I think this is a smart move by Microsoft. It will force users to be wiser about their computer usage and stop Windows 7 from earning itself a bad reputation through no fault of its own. The Windows dev team have certainly done their part to make Windows 7 more lean and mean, by popular demand over many years. I don’t think that asking the consumer to be careful with the processor cycles is too big a favor in return. If you don’t like this limitation, I’m sure you should be considering a laptop instead.

iPhone only allows 1 running app at a time, and 95% of iPhone apps seem to just be frontends to websites in any case. Heaven forbid this might all be for the very same reason…

Let me correct that for you. With Ubuntu you can run as many *worthless* programs at once as you want. This is not news, as pointed out there was a starter version of XP as well. Keep saying your freetard mantra all you want, but 2009 won’t be the year of the Linux desktop.

shouldn’t the user be in charge of over using system resources. I know that under-developed countries might not know how to efficiently use their system resources, but they won’t learn unless they are given a chance. Maybe just put up a box saying running more than 3 apps will degrade your system’s efficiency…

Because Windows 7 Starter Edition is not the right operating system for you or me does not mean that it is a poor choice for everyone.

Linux is a great alternative if you’re a geek like one of us. And hopefully this will be the final straw that will push another bunch of budding geeks from developing nations into the welcoming arms of something like Ubuntu, but it’s not (and never will be) a solution for most people. For them it’s the decision between finding a pirated copy of Windows or living with the restrictions of a starter edition. If Microsoft can pinch from both sides by making it harder to get illegal copies of Windows while making legal copies like this cheaper then this could be a brilliant marketing move that will net them a lot of money from a previously untapped source. People in those developing countries may be poor, but there are a lot of them.

Cal G: People have been saying exactly those words for the past decade.

It’s closer to true now, but I trust you’ll forgive me for being more sanguine about the prospects than you.

Carl A and Alek have the right of it, I think. For a base, default OS for a netbook, that seems like a reasonable way to run things. The tiny number of people with a developing-nation-market netbook that want more… can install linux on it. Or even a bigger version of Windows 7.

@Ronald: The starter edition is what will ship with the new crop of netbooks. If you buy a $350 netbook are you really going to want to shell out an extra benjamin for a retail copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (or whatever)?

Graphic interface Linux is a good option for developing nations. Not Windows. I don’t understand why MS has to cripple their operating system for these markets. Is it to reduce the tech support needs when a computer becomes too unmanageable by cramming too much onto it? We all know Windows becomes a slow, bloated mess over time. Maybe this is meant to manage that a little.

I’m not going to say “Get a Mac” in this case because that’s outside the context of this article, developing nations and all.

This limitation is so easy to solve, we’re going to MAKE ground overcoming it – seriously! All one need to is install your favorite virtualization suite (e.g. Virtual Box), install your favorite flavor of Linex (e.g. Debian or Ubuntu), and presto: one application running that runs every application you’ll ever need!

You do realize that the people commenting here are absolutely NOT the intended target market right? This is aimed people with little to know computer expertise, not at power users, and DEFINITELY not at people who have the know how to deal with Linux.

Maybe its a bad idea but the reasons being given are about as useful as a bunch of NASCAR drivers complaining about the cornering on a Honda Civic. Not the intended purpose or audience folks.

Does anyone use Windows Vista Home Basic? Didn’t think so. Most Windows users these days have Home Premium since that’s what came with their computers. Other than netbooks — Starter’s target audience and a perfect fit as Alex K. pointed out — most computers will come with the next step up and not have such limitations. No one will notice a difference; even arrogant propagandists like the author of this article will likely have no experience with this entry level edition, but might end up using — even briefly — higher versions.

Vivek and Raj need more than three aps open. Most geeks do. Most computer users are not geeks. They don’t use more than one app at a time. I don’t like Windows but … I don’t see the problem here. Vivek, are you saying you would consider running Windows Starter Edition if it ran more than 3 apps at a time?

my MOTHER uses more than 3 apps at once, and she’s hardly a power user. i regularly have multiple applications open at once too, le’see: firefox, Eagle, pdf reader, and google chat. that’s 4, i create schematics in eagle based upon data from pdfs, and web pages, so that’s 3 mandatory apps right there, what if i want music? yup bad move MS

As the owner of a computer repair business, I can already see the trouble this operating system is going to cause people. I can only hope that Microsoft stamps the word “CRIPPLED” in big, bold white letters on the front of the packaging to educate consumers.

linux isn’t for everyone i dual boot vista and windows 7 (windows 7 runs much better) and on occasion use a couple live distros of linux mostly backtrack 3 for hacking reasons but when i want to run a new program windows is always compatible less than 5% of the time the only os thats compatible and whoever suggested a mac you are a giant joke lol if you need a good looking paper weight macs are perfect!! linux is great for advanced users who dont like new emerging programs and games and any windows limitation will be fixed by users within a couple months!!

This looks like another attempt by Microsoft to boost the Linux market share. As previously stated, why would anyone choose to pay for a highly restricted OS such as this instead of a free, full featured one? As to Linux not being for non-power users, I think it is just a matter of where you start. At this point in its evolution, Linux should be as easy to learn as Windows, so long as you are not starting the learning curve with a Windows bias (such as the case of the target market). Given the range of excellent apps that come pre-installed with most Linux distros, the cost benefits are multiple as you will not likely be using non-free (or pirated) applications as well. My not-terribly-technical Mom (in her 60’s) happily runs PCLinuxOS which she installed herself after ongoing Windows problems. I would probably be considered a power user and run a highly custom Debian install, and the only persistent problem I encounter is with Adobe’s lack of updates for Flash on Linux. Other than that, I mostly sit back and marvel how everything… just… works…

so much hatred against a post that shows how blatantly MS sells crippleware and insults developing nations by doing so. Most of them need not even be reasoned with/against. I prefer the governments working hard to bring out their own distributions and should additionally even confiscate computers with windows, or deport them to ‘developed’ nations where they can be stuck with windows. to say that the user is never going to need to get smarter and make better use of CPU resources to run more apps, is just plain ignorant. Why don’t posts that evoke positive reactions, get so many and so lengthy comments?

You’re forgetting the most obvious alternative – pirated WinXP! This supposed to be for “emerging markets” right? In India, if you pre-install Linux, DOS or crippled Windows editions (which they do), it will all be formatted by the friendly computer retailer and a cracked version of Windows XP Home will be installed. Nobody paying for a 350-500$ netbook will shell out for a boxed Windows set OR go to the trouble of adjusting to Linux. It isn’t the consumers who will ‘look’ for alternatives – piracy is already an established one; its the hardware guys like Acer and Dell who will stop paying MS for the crippled Windows editions because they know that the consumers won’t use it.

“This edition is available only in the OEM channel on new PCs limited to specific types of hardware. ”

This is the key phrase that most people’s kneejerk responses are ignoring. This limitation is obviously meant for systems that can’t HANDLE more than 3 apps at a time because of crappy CPU or RAM or whatever else. Microsoft does not control a computer’s hardware like Apple, so if some user runs 20 apps on a crappy computer and it slows down to a crawl, it’s not the OS’s fault, but they’ll blame the OS for being slow. This misconception is what I think they’re attempting to avoid, and it makes total sense.

Run Ubuntu and 20 apps with GUI on a crappy ass computer and you’ll deal with a ridiculously slow experience also. Granted 3 apps is a very small number, but without knowing what crappy hardware they’re employing this on, can you say that other systems will perform at the same speeds with more apps running? Let’s wait for some benchmarks before the flaming begins.

Of course you can keep shitting on M$ for BS reasons, fanboys, it only makes you lose credibility.

Hmm. Does it limit the number of threads? If not, someone could create a shell application that will run other programs as a thread there by evading the “3 application” limitation. Anyone remember BBS door games or DesqView?

A number of people point out that you can get around this limitation by installing a virtualization suite and use it to install a Linux flavor. Seriously? If you have the wherewithal to set up Linux on a virtual machine then why are you flagellating yourself by running Windows Starter Edition in the first place?

And I don’t want to get into a “year of the Linux desktop” war with Cal G so I should admit that my statement that Linux is not a suitable alternative to this was too broad. More specifically a standard Linux distro and the accompanying applications built by volunteer geeks will never be the right choice for the mainstream audience that the Windows Starter Edition and Windows programs are aimed at. It’s not a swipe at anyone’s dedication or talent and I hope to be proven wrong, but geeks like us fundamentally lack the ability to see the world like a nontechnical person. (Unlike Alex K I wouldn’t call them stupid, just different in the way their minds work.) However, plenty of systems built on top of a Linux/BSD kernel (e.g. Android, TiVo, or OS X) are successful with a mainstream audience because they can afford to have professional designers make a user-friendly UI. You or I may deride what they come up with and point out how Linux and open source applications are technically more “feature complete” but what we say in a forum thread on a Linux site doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to the rest of the world. Starter Edition will hit the market and people in these countries will have a choice of whether to use that, pirate real Windows, or use Linux. What I hope to happen and what I think will happen are two distinct things.

Most posters above are idiots. What part of STARTER EDITION used for 3rd World Countries isn’t clear. Guess what? Your $8000 KIA isn’t going to be as good/fast/fancy as your $140,000 BMW – so lets have a big Fanboy argument about that little problem as well. I find it ironic that all you open source fanboys preach FREEDOM, as long as it’s not the freedom to choose WHAT WORKS BEST for you.

I’ll just state the obvious here: Offering lots of different versions of the same operating system causes unnecessary confusion for the consumer. Microsoft seems to have forgotten that lesson from Vista’s release. Everyone wants and operating system that is capable, even if they aren’t using its full capacity the first second they install it. They don’t want to have to upgrade just because they need to run a new application for work, or use a VPN, or whatever. It is stupid and defies reason. This is what Apple got very right, Linux has always embraced (being fundamentally different), and Microsoft seems willfully ignorant of.

People ‘get’ having to install an application to do something additional, but when you tell them they need to buy more software to run the software they just bought… well, that’s just f*cking annoying.

What do you gain by criticizing Linux and its users? Yeah, we have no “support”, but if you have ever run into a problem with Windows, you know that you don’t have support either. The only difference is that we Linux users can rely on each other for support; who do you rely on? Certainly not Microsoft, or Dell, or HP. When the solution is to reinstall, that is not support! For the amount of money you pay, you should not have to reinstall to fix a problem.

Why am I defending Linux? I’ll tell you, because Canonical has never asked me for a penny and has freely provided me with updates and upgrades, without invading my privacy. So, you can take your WGA (that falsely labels you a pirate) and fold it 5 ways, shove it up your BSOD. For the amount of money you pay, you should not have your privacy violated, your integrity questioned, or your wallet pillaged with every upgrade. BTW, upgrades in Linux are a breeze.

Finally, if free and open source software sucks, then why did Microsoft take the networking stack from FreeBSD and incorporate it into Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, and the upcoming 7? Without that, who wouldn’t be able to connect to the Internet and complain about FOSS, because history has shown that, left to their own devices, Microsoft is incapable of doing anything correctly. Remember that, the next time your computer blue-screen’s or your Xbox-360 red-ring’s. Once again, for the amount of money you pay, you should get something that works. If free and open source software is good enough for your beloved Microsoft, why isn’t it good enough for you?

Don’t you just love it when someone pays MS and then lies down while MS takes a full on dump on their chest and they just lie there, mouths wide open waiting for that perfect golden shower… Then when all is said and done, all soiled and dripping, they look at you and say, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” People who can’t afford this should be satisfied with the diarrhoea edition…

The decision to make possible for users to only run three applications at the same time in a non-free operating system is a nonsense and users should go surely for a free operating system like ubuntu instead.

@Carl A Your affirmations about linux GUIs are completely wrong. Frist of all you assume that linux GUIs are projected by geeks for geeks, and that’s the first wrong assumption. hundreds of firms, universities and usability experts collaborate to the GNOME and KDE projects and recently several independent studies proved that linux GUIs are even easier to use than the windows ones. Ubuntu itself is a linux distro conceived for non-technical users. It’s surely not perfect yet, but the community it’s working hard to get there, and Ubuntu april release has proven once again that Ubuntu is on the good road for the future. Geeks are surely strange people, but they are smart enough to recognize what is their limit and when a professional opinion is required that’s why Canonical, the firm behind the Ubuntu project, hired professional UI designers who will provide an even better use experience for the future desktop linux.

Now the problem for linux on the desktop is the lack of professional apps like Adobe CS or AutoCAD. Of course you’re not going to execute Photoshop CS3 on Windows Starter Edition and you’re not going to create 3D environments on a strippled hardware. So, if your work doesn’t depend from specific windows apps, you can use the alternatives ubuntu offers for free. And you’ll be surely happier to waste some memory and cpu cycle for some extra program than for an always running antivirus. Ubuntu is practically virus and malware free, works great even on netbooks and if you choose the right distribution (like Ubuntu) I have no doubts that it will for markets in developing countries.

This is just a way for Microsoft to cash in on the netbook market without losing money to the rest of the pc market. Obviously linux has this market in the bag. All this is going to do is irritate the consumers that it it aimed at which is the less than average computer user. They are not going to care if it’s the hardware or the os that is crippled, And with the reputation Microsoft has earned it self in recent years I believe this is a bad marketing decision for them to even step into the netbook market. Windows 7 is going to be a great release, I can say from personal experience as I’ve beta tested it for the last few months, but it has no place in the netbook market. What the netbook market needs is a locked down linux distro, that is less vulnerable to viruses and malware with a simple interface a a small foot print. Any power user out there will put whatever that prefer on there net book so it doesn’t really matter to them.

I’d just like to add that these netbook out right now are not just toys or “Starter computers” I have the Dell mini 10 with dualboot xp and Ubuntu 9.04 and use it all the time being a computer tech. It a fully functional computer it will run Office 2007 with no problem as well as Expression Web 2 and Photoshop CS4. Just FYI

> What will happen when a virus runs three instances of its self?! There are at least two answers: 1) Your antivirus will never start to cure it… :-) 2) It will never happen, because you will always need to run one instance of an antivirus, one instance of antispyware and one instance of a better firewall. :-)

“We are also going to enable Windows 7 Starter customers the ability to run as many applications simultaneously as they would like, instead of being constricted to the 3 application limit that the previous Starter editions included. “

I am no great defender of microsoft, but this article is just wrong. Windows 7 starter edition was indeed announced by microsoft to only run three programs (like vista starter and xp starter) but in fact the final released product does not have this limitation. The starter edition does indeed have other limitations (no joining domains like in ‘pro’ or ‘ultimate’, no dvd playback, not media player, no aero glass support). they market the limited functionality as to not suck too much performance from already performance challanged netbooks… but clearly the design was to be able to sell a copy of windows for the least amount of money so that they can compete in the low priced netbook market. sure it is lame, and sure linux is a better choice if you don’t need to run windows applications, but you get what you pay for…

I have windows7 starter and right now I am running more than 5 programs. But I have another problem – all the programs I have can’t run on this windows- office7, adobe CS4, BS player, Nero…everything I try to install tells me- this windows is not compatible…and I use programs for windows7! why like this?